Can a value be Added Under the Registry Key DoNotDisableAddinList

Question

Can an msi be used to add a value to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList?

Currently I'm getting an error

Could not write Addin_Name to Key \Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.

I'm an Administrator on the machine from which the MSI is being run.

You don't need to be administrator to access HKCU branch, user permissions are enough. What you need to make sure is the path you trying to set key/value pair is exists, otherwise create it before setting the pair. why do you set something into this key at the first place? You shouldn't do that. this key is for end users, definitely not for setting via MSI. Looks like hack, isn't it? — Slava Ivanov
It's absolutely a hack :) In the past we've had some trouble with Add-Ins being "slow" on startup, so now management would like to simply make the addition during installation and avoid "slow load" problems. NOTE: In my Installer code I've made sure that the path did exist with a conditional statement. — ezG
@Germán Have a look at your registry table of the MSI with Orca. You should have Root of your key set to 1 (HKCU) and Key should be starting with "Software..." (without slash, as mention @MichaelUrman). If you are creating this key dynamically with some CA, show your code. make sure Outlook 2013 installed as you specified version "15.0" in your path. — Slava Ivanov
@Germán If at the end you will decide to make it right this post will help: Support for Keeping Add-ins Enabled — Slava Ivanov
@MichaelUrman, I am using InstallAware 18. The root is set to HKEY_CURRENT_USER and the Path I provided is set to "Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList" The more I think about this, the more I don't like the solution even if I could do it through an msi. It would seem to me that if the Add-In should experience a crash on loading that you would want Outlook NOT to load the thing. However, that's a conversation to have with management. I will double check my code and post my findings. thank you for your input. — ezG

ezG ezG · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-19T18:16:27

What we eventually ended up doing was

1) Exporting the registry value to a .reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList] "Your.AddinName"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList] "Your.AdinName"=dword:00000001

2) Created Batch File

@echo off

reg ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList" /v "Your.AddinName" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 reg ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList" /v "Your.AddinName" /t REG_DWORD /d 1

3) From Installer call Regedit.exe ("/s" option) on the .reg file created in step 1.

4) From Installer call batch file created in step 2.

Can a value be Added Under the Registry Key DoNotDisableAddinList

1 Answers